


Marking Time

by recrudescence



Category: Firefly
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 21:05:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recrudescence/pseuds/recrudescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It would unnerve them all if they knew Wash is smeared and spattered all over the cockpit even though Mal and Jayne scoured the area as soon as they could.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marking Time

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to the Porn Battle prompt: needs.

No one will ever accuse her. No one will ever say it was her fault. If she hadn’t gone to rob that bank with Mal and the others, Simon would never have insisted they leave Serenity, they never would have set foot in the Maidenhead, the trigger would never have set the switch in her head and compelled her to find Miranda, they never would have gone there in the first place. If she says it out loud, they’ll all say it would have somehow happened anyhow.

Simon will soothe her and ease her and tell her she’s done so well, that she's getting so much better. Simon needs to be happy, can’t live his life hovering around his shattered shell of a sister like a satellite, so when she balls her fists up to her mouth and sobs into them she makes sure nobody hears. Zoe, who still spends too much of her time silently standing by the console, pushes her hair back and her arms come around River, strength and security. Zoe doesn’t crumble. Zoe doesn’t cry.

River thinks that might be worse.

The secret of Miranda was too much for her to handle alone, and now the government is being held accountable. People demanding to know why, to know what else the Alliance had undertaken and tried to hide. _Tell us_, River wants to demand. _This is what we did to your children and we are sorry_.

Mal wants to overthrow the government entirely, but that’s nothing new.

Turning on itself, executing, covering up, bringing officials to trial. Unrest is growing, but not fast enough. Their warrants remain place, red tape maintaining the status quo.

They broke open her brain and took what they wanted. She did the same thing to Zoe’s heart.

The chair was covered with blood, so they got a new one. No trace of him there; it still smells clean and new. But everything else is still too full of him and the incongruity of the chair gets swallowed up in phantom _Wash_. She keeps the dinosaurs, talks to them, but never out loud since she knows it unnerves people and she’s trying to be less unnerving.

It would unnerve them all if they knew Wash is smeared and spattered all over the cockpit even though Mal and Jayne scoured the area as soon as they could. Sometimes it makes River shake, the way she can feel his fingerprints on everything she touches, the way she sees flashes of Hawaiian-shirt patterns that should be there but aren’t.

She was the one who killed him and now she’s replacing him and she’s so filled with grief and fury sometimes she can’t speak. Mal takes over a fair amount of the time, sometimes bringing Inara since she still hasn’t left, but no one’s talked about hiring a new pilot. Not yet. So River does her best because bringing in someone new would hurt even more than grooming her to fill Wash’s role. She doesn’t want to bring any more hurt.

Zoe sleeps curled on the same side of the bed every night, her weapons within easy reach, her body never crossing the midpoint of the mattress. When River sneaks down and stretches out where Wash used to sleep, she wraps herself in the bed’s history and thinks if she tries hard enough she can carry it away with her and leave some peace behind for Zoe.

Zoe finds her once and lets her stay. “He’s still here and he still loves you and I’m sorry.” She chokes it out as Zoe’s kisses fill her mouth and her hands slide around Zoe’s waist the way Wash’s used to.

It's not like the way he fucked Zoe, in their bed and in his chair and over the console even though it was uncomfortable and how she once went down on him right there under it and Mal came up unexpectedly and Wash carried on a whole conversation without once turning around—after Mal left, he’d cursed when he came and Zoe had laughed and wrapped herself around him like a rich, dark robe until he calmed back down enough to demand what the hell she’d been thinking and when she would think it again. It isn’t the same at all. But Zoe never tells her to leave and River doesn’t want to.

Eavesdown is filled with the roar of ships ascending and descending, the sizzle of skewered meat over flaming grills, the trill of flutes from a vendor’s stall. A tremor goes through Zoe’s body, only visible from the inside, but River feels it and remembers, because Zoe remembers, how Wash used to love flute music.

Kaylee takes Simon’s hand. River takes Zoe’s.


End file.
